Comments on: Is it Time to Deport the State of Arizona from The United States?

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:43:27 +0000

Tony, I gotta apologize for the fact that I just now looked at the second link you posted, and watched the CSPAN video of Mclintoch. I think he’s being incredibly over zealous and very a-historical in his approach to assimilation. He’s basically ignoring the very well understood rule of 3 generations in assimilation. He’s assuming wrongly that people come to the US mainly for reasons other than economic, and forcing them to give up all ties to their previous lives in cruel.
I personally know how hard this transition can be. I grew up on the Texas border in a bilingual home, and with family on both sides of the border. I’m now at the upper age limit of having kids with my wife, and she’s really pushing the issue, so we’ll probably be having kids soon. I think it’s kids that really create conflict in people. I know for me the idea of having kids creates an anxiety of what their identity will be. My wife is Japanese, so I don’t want my kids to be disconnected from the 3 cultures of their family. I want to make sure they speak English, Spanish and Japanese, which I only one one couple that’s been able to pull off.
My sister’s having a hell of a time getting her kids to learn Spanish in Houston. I know that I’ll have to move to where ever I can get a more stable career, which is probably not going to be on the Texas border, or Japan.

BTW, I originally had to move from the border, because the cheap labor market drives down wages, and it’s really hard to get a decent, non-government job. That goes back to my original point of how this debate is ultimately economic in nature, but I can see how identity politics has hijacked it.

By: ryan a

ryan a — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:28:47 +0000

Hey Tony,

I have been meaning to comment on this one for a while…sorry for lagging. This whole discussion is really important, and it’s getting heated on all sides. Did you hear about the list of 1300 people that was published in Utah? Look into that story–that is exactly the kind of thing that we dont’ want to see, IMO.

The problem is that people in AZ and elsewhere have to find a way to start separating the different issues that they are dealing with. Yes, illegal immigration is one issue, and it certainly comes with a lot of complications and problems. And THEN the whole narcotraficante thing is another issue. All too often people conflate the two, and want to deal with ALL immigration as if everyone who is crossing the border is armed with an AR-15.

So there is the issue with labor migration, and there is the issue with drug runners (and Americans have to start realizing that this particular problem is not just some import from Columbia and Mexico…a large part of the problem here as well).

Anyway, I’m glad you’re writing about this. I’d like to see more and more coming from various anthropology folks, since I definitely think this is a place where we can add something to the public discussion.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 01:12:01 +0000

“creation of a transparent guest worker program”

I’m exhausted, so I’ll make it short. This already exists. It’s actually pretty easy for an employer to declare that they have had a job open for a certain period of time and haven’t filled it. People that sign up and get a temporary work VISA. I’ve worked on cotton farms with migrant laborers from Mexico and lived with them in work trailers. If someone left or got injured, there was literally someone on a bus coming to fill in for him the next day. Outside of the military which was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, this work was pretty evil. Everything was up to code though, we were paid minimum wage, and if we got hurt they took us to the hospital with workers comp., we got FICA out of our checks, etc… This is an issue of exploitation as much as anything.
There have also already been many amnesty programs, and they have done nothing to alleviate the issue.
The issue is that there has been zero enforcement of laws past the 50 mile check points. There were over 1,300,000 new citizens last year, and more had permanent or temporary VISAs. That more people than all the other wealthy nations on earth combined.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:15:53 +0000

Rick:
Good points. I am not for an open-border policy, but would be in favor of a couple of measures which would make other uncomfortable. Any holistic reform needs to include creation of a transparent guest worker program which also recognizes that some will stay for legitimate reasons, development of a national identity card system, enforcement of employer laws, and establishment of offices which are readily accessible to all throughout the country. For an example, see Germany and the EU where there are effective systems of registration and i.d. cards for everyone. This is all has a lot of start-up costs, but in the long run works well, and permits better enforcement of fair employment laws.
Then there is of course the problem of those already here. Some form of cheap legalization (i.e. amnesty) is needed. The problem created now is something like prohibition. Sometimes a law is unwieldly and unenforceable, and you have to start over with a new tack.

I know that the left and libertarian right won’t like the idea of national registration. And much of the right wing will hate it.

So it is back to you!

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:47:34 +0000

California is a strange state to many Texans, for very concrete reasons. For example, you can go to San Diego, be close enough to the border to see it, and be standing in a majority “white” neighborhood. How is that possible? It’s such a segregated state. A bunch of walls also went up in California to stop the flow of illegals to border cities, and funneled them into the Arizona desert. This created a real political economic issue for the state, which was ignored by people who were largely insulated from the problem, through restrictive zoning.
So an obviously cultural materialist issue became an ideational one. Arizonan’s became defacto racist scum. If we look at the history of the issue, we can see that this isn’t an ideational issue. Multi-generational Mexican Americans in Arizona support the legislation for the most part, which does nothing more than make an illegal act illegal in the state.
Being a student of persuasive cultural discourse I see protests in this situation in the same light as I saw the protests against health care reform. In both cases the interests of a minority group are being transferred to a wider audience with the use of symbols and emotionally loaded language.

I think that’s what bothers me, the dishonesty of the debate. I really hate it when people do this. I wish people would just be honest and let people make an informed decision. I have yet to hear anyone, not a single person, publicly admit what they mean when they say “holistic immigration reform.” They say our policy is broken, but hundreds of thousands of people come in legally; more than all most of the nations of the world combined. I’ve been through the process and it’s not complicated.

Basically, advocates are arguing for an open border policy, but they are only doing so for a specific group of people. There can be strong arguments made for an open border system, but they aren’t doing that. It’s dishonest.